Category: Training

On December 4th, 2025, Dr. Ansgar Hudde led an online workshop on Scientific Data Visualization for the Methods Lab, examining the principles, possibilities, and responsibilities involved in communicating data effectively. He opened by highlighting the influence of visualizations in scientific research and how design choices can carry subtle, persuasive, and even political messages. Dr. Hudde encouraged participants to consider what makes a graph clear and meaningful, noting that sketching ideas on paper can be a valuable first step in the design process.

He then walked the group through a wide range of published figures to show how design affects interpretation. Participants shared their perspectives as he highlighted the need to balance informativeness, accessibility, and visual appeal. Together, they examined examples where unclear axes, inconsistent fonts, vertical text, or poor color choices hindered comprehension, as well as examples where alignment, labeling, and intentional color palettes made complex information easy to understand.
Key principles surfaced throughout the session, including consistent fonts, intuitive scales, embedded labels that reduce clutter, and mindful decisions about emphasizing detail versus simplicity. Dr. Hudde also discussed technical considerations such as smoothing noisy data, using jittering to show distributions, selecting appropriate graph types, and avoiding three dimensional forms or style choices that add complexity without improving understanding. He reminded participants that visualization is never neutral, especially in maps, where choices about scale, labeling, and color strongly shape interpretation.

The second half of the workshop was interactive. Participants submitted their own graphs, explained their context, and received practical feedback from Dr. Hudde and fellow attendees. Discussions focused on choosing accessible color palettes, adjusting axes and titles for clarity, modifying label angles, and simplifying overly complex designs. Participants also raised questions about visualizing Likert scales, presenting regression results, and ensuring figures remain interpretable in grayscale. The group briefly discussed software options, and Dr. Hudde recommended Stata, R, and Python, while noting that consistency within one’s analytic environment matters most.

By the end of the workshop, attendees had refined their figures and deepened their understanding of how intentional design choices enhance interpretability, clarity, and the responsible communication of research.

Join us in the upcoming workshop on Scientific Data Visualization, beneficial for researchers, students, and professionals interested in improving their skills in quantitative data visualization. On December 4, 2025, Ansgar Hudde, lecturer in Sociology at the University of Cologne, will lead an online, hands-on session introducing strategies for creating clear and effective visualizations in Stata.

The workshop will cover key aspects of graph design, including working with text, colours, axes, reference lines, transparency, fonts, and number formatting. Through interactive exercises with example datasets, participants will gain practical experience applying these principles and build confidence in producing polished, informative figures. By the end of the session, they will be able to create and refine visualizations that strengthen their empirical research and academic publications.

For more details, please visit our program page. We hope to see you there! 

Join us for the workshop Introduction to MAXQDA, designed for all researchers, students, and professionals interested in qualitative data analysis. On May 28th, 2025, at the Weizenbaum Institute, certified MAXQDA trainer Dr. phil. Aikokul Maksutova will lead a basic yet comprehensive workshop introducing the software’s core features, aligning with the key stages of digital qualitative research.

This event will offer guidance on MAXQDA’s essential tools for documenting, coding, and analyzing qualitative data. Participants will become familiar with navigating the Code System and a range of additional features, such as functions for exporting data, linking memos, and generating visualizations. Each segment will include hands-on activities using various datasets, enabling participants to confidently apply the skills they’ve learned on their own.

To conclude, special guest and representative of MAXQDA, Ms. Tamara Pataki, will inform participants of the software’s latest innovations and host an open Q&A session.

To learn more, please visit our program page. We hope to see you there!

In a joint effort, the Career Development and the Methods Lab are excited to announce the hybrid “Career Tutorial on LLMs for all Expertise Levels”. In this tutorial, beginning with fundamental concepts of LLMs and in-context learning, we’ll address the “Needle in the Haystack Problem” and compare ultra-long context models with RAG approaches. Through practical demonstrations, participants will gain hands-on experience with RAG’s core functionalities and understand its objectives. The session delves into scaling solutions using vector databases and advanced implementations, including chunking strategies, hybrid RAG, and graph-based RAG architectures. We conclude with an overview of emerging trends, examining agentic RAG and the integration of reasoning models in deep research applications. This comprehensive exploration equips attendees with both theoretical knowledge and practical insights into the latest developments in AI language models.

For more information, visit our program page. We are looking forward to your participation!